


you i promise to protect

by MashpotatoeQueen5



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Chosen One Satoshi | Ash Ketchum, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Friendship, Gen, Good Friend Pikachu (Pokemon), Late Night Conversations, Movie: Minna no Monogatari | The Power of Us, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Protective Pikachu (Pokemon), Satoshi | Ash Ketchum Needs a Hug, Saving the World, Trauma, after rewatching the power of us, because i wanted to give ash a little more depth, i wrote this in half an hour, takes place early on in the movie, you don't have to watch the film to get what's going on though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29566494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5/pseuds/MashpotatoeQueen5
Summary: There's something coming, slowly encroaching on Fula City.Pikachu can sense it.So can Ash.(Just one time,Pikachu thinks,just one time, it would be nice for the world to save itself.)
Relationships: Satoshi | Ash Ketchum & Satoshi no Pikachu | Ash Ketchum's Pikachu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 84





	you i promise to protect

**Author's Note:**

> I love The Power of Us, but I would have loved to see just a little of Ash character growth too.  
> So I wrote some :)
> 
> Title is from the Black and White Rival Destinies theme song :)

“Pikachu.”

It’s very quiet, in the hotel room this far up above the city, but the words are hardly more than a murmur and still manage to be swallowed by the silence. Pikachu flicks his ear, peaks up at his partner who’s staring at the ceiling and looking very tired.

_ “Hmm?” _

“Something’s coming. I can  _ feel  _ that something’s coming, something big, and-” Ash pauses, licks his lips. Pikachu looks up at him.

Risa, flashing blonde hair and tentative enthusiasm, Evie prancing in green grass. That little old granny and her carried grief, a bossy loudmouth with more lies than truths under his tongue. Mysterious petty crimes and an even more mysterious mountain looming high, with Lugia on the way. There’s something there, he feels it, too: an adventure in the making. A world to save.

_ Just one time,  _ Pikachu thinks,  _ just one time, it would be nice for the world to save itself. _

It’s not fair. 

It’s never been fair.

(They never asked for this.)

Ash’s eyes seem to take all the light in the room and swallow it whole. He’s tense all over, breath hitching ever so slightly, fingers digging into pale hotel sheets.

These darker moments, these hesitations and falters, they’re just for Pikachu. No one else can see his partner like this, vulnerable and almost scared. Tired. When Brock was with them, sometimes the older boy could pry out these hidden insecurities-

But Brock is gone, now, and the job falls on Pikachu. He pads up higher on the sleep shirt, soft paws and soft movements, nuzzles under his best friend’s chin. Almost instinctively, Ash starts to pet down his back, smoothing ruffed fur, smoothing out his breathing.

_ There we go,  _ Pikachu thinks,

And then-

_ ‘We could leave. Slip away right now. No one would even have to know.’ _

_ I won’t judge,  _ he doesn’t say, but he thinks that, too.

Ash just shakes his head, curls both arms around Pikachu’s small frame. He couldn’t expect anything less, because Ash has a bleeding heart the size of the universe and would never, ever,  _ ever  _ turn his back on a pokemon, on a world he loves so much. Because Ash doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body, not when it comes to important things. Not when it comes to this.

Sometimes,  _ sometimes,  _ when Ash is blindly throwing himself into danger  _ again-  _ because he always, always does- Pikachu wishes his partner was just a bit more selfish, a bit less kind. Because Ash is there for the world, but if he dies then Pikachu will lose  _ his  _ whole world.

Pikachu can’t imagine a world without Ash.

(That’s a lie. Pikachu  _ can  _ imagine it, has lived it once or twice, in heartstopping moments he can’t bring himself to linger on. He has tasted that terror, that devastation, and choked on it.)

Ash breathes, and he breathes with him. The fan above them spins slowly, around and around and around. Down the hallway, someone titters loudly, only to be even more loudly shushed. Outside the window, the wind whistles on.

They don’t talk about it. The  _ being the Chosen One  _ thing, all the legendaries turning to Ash when there is no one else to turn to. They don’t talk about Pikachu, either, about how much power he has tucked away under his skin, so much more than this small body should be able to hold.

This is as close as they get. Quiet, hidden moments when no one else is watching. These darker emotions Ash keeps buried so deep creeping their way out into the light, enemies Pikachu can’t thunderbolt into submission.

He would, though. If he could.

Pikachu would do anything for this boy. He would fight gods.

(He already has.)

Ash inhales, exhales, and when he speaks his tone is clipped and not quite broken, but bending: Pikachu has to strain to hear, the words are so small in all this silence. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep doing this alone, bud.” 

And here, Pikachu hesitates. What can you say to something like that? There are no promises he can make, none he knows he can keep. There are only dreams and hopes and wishes, and some nights they sit under the stars and they paint them there, scattered across the night sky.

This doesn’t feel like one of those nights.

He remembers, suddenly, yesterday. The green of that coastal shelf overlooking the sea, the way Risa had been fit to burst with all the joy inside of her, the way Ash had shone so, so bright.

(His Ash is always bright, even when he’s as tired and as small as this, he’s still brighter than the sun.)

He remembers what Ash said, then, and huddles closer.

_ ‘You’re not alone. You have me. Pokemon power, right?’ _

It takes a second, but his partner realizes what Pikachu is referencing and bursts into a startled, hitching chuckle, reaching up to wipe at his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah. I can do anything, as long as I’m with you, Pikachu.”

_ ‘Keep rhyming like that, and I’ll start mistaking you for Team Rocket! _ ’

Another laugh, and Pikachu grins in success. Beams up at his partner who smiles small back down on him. 

This is what Pikachu does.  _ This,  _ out of everything, is his most important job: more important than fighting, more important than training, more important, even, than helping legendaries. If Pikachu can keep Ash smiling and happy and whole, keep his spark burning bright, bright, bright, then he’s in the clear.

Pikachu protects Ash from himself, from these dark, quiet moments when the world presses in too big and too close and too much. He made a promise to himself, once, that he’d follow this boy to the ends of the earth without hesitation. That he would love him with every fiber of his being, through anything. Through everything.

He hasn’t failed yet. 

Ash turns over, wraps his arms around him. If Pikachu curls up close enough, he can listen to his boy’s heartbeat, beating strong and steady.

In the morning, they will awake to a city to save, an impossible task set at their feet once more. Under his paws, Ash will tense, breathe, and step forwards. Pikachu will stay on his shoulder and squeeze tight, reminding him that he’s there, that he will always, always be there, no matter what.

But for now, they cuddle together in a hotel room that is too big for their small frames. They whisper the kinder truths of the universe rather than the darker ones- truths about friendship and bonds and kindnesses freely given- and it means something, maybe, to do so.

Or maybe it just means enough to get them by.

“You and me, Pikachu,” his best friend murmurs, and kisses the crown of his head.

_ ‘You and me, Ash.’ _

Tomorrow is a new day, and they will face it together, no matter what dawn it may bring.

But for now, they curl up together and breathe, a boy and his pikachu, inseparable best friends.

But for now, they sleep, and they get to be okay.


End file.
